The best white paint colors, in real rooms
Every white on this list has been photographed in a real room and credited to the designer who chose it. That is the whole test. We are not ranking bestsellers or chips; we are showing you twelve whites doing their job on actual walls, with the brand's own data, the undertone, and the one thing each is likely to get wrong in your house.
The colors
Credited & tagged
Benjamin Moore's most popular white, and ours: 39 credited rooms, more than any other color on this site. A soft warm white with a gray-green base that keeps it from going yellow, and one of the few warm whites that holds up in a north-facing room. Where it fails: next to true whites. Beside white subway tile or a cool quartz counter it reads creamy.
Farrow & Ball's warm white, named for the lime pointing between bricks, with a faint red note underneath. In 19 rooms here, mostly by HKB Interior Design and Studio Nauleau. It belongs in a warm scheme; next to a blue-white trim or gray marble its red shows as a dirty pink.
Sherwin-Williams' white with almost no agenda: a trace of gray keeps it from glaring, a trace of warmth keeps it from turning blue. 16 rooms. Designers often keep it on trim and put a warmer white on the walls, because in low light it can go flat.
The cream by which other creams are measured: yellow-beige under a bright LRV, so it stays open rather than heavy. 16 rooms from four studios. It fails against cool finishes; Carrara marble and white appliances make it look much yellower than it is.
Benjamin Moore's bright warm white: a touch of yellow keeps it friendly, but at LRV 89.52 it still reads as white in almost every room, which is why it works on walls, trim and ceilings together. 10 rooms. Beside cool white surfaces, the yellow shows.
The off-white for people who find most whites too creamy. Benjamin Moore describes trace amounts of gray and violet in it, so it reads clean and quiet. 9 rooms, all by Fawn Galli. We have found no independent review of it, so the rooms are the evidence.
A soft off-white that Farrow & Ball describes as pared back and timeless, without cool undertones, recalling old school houses. 9 rooms, including kitchens by Fare Inc. and Anja Michals Design.
A warm, creamy Sherwin-Williams white with more pigment than a stark white, so it reads as a soft cream. 8 rooms, all one living room by Studio Eidos Design, which shows how a cream moves across a single space.
The crispest white on the list, at LRV 90.04, with only the faintest cool edge. Benjamin Moore names it among its most popular whites. 8 rooms. It fails in dim rooms, where it stops looking white and starts looking gray.
A soft white cooled by gray. Benjamin Moore says cool gray undertones freshen it, and its LRV of 76.43 keeps it a step below the brightest whites, so it reads calm rather than glaring. 7 rooms by Kristen Ekeland Interiors.
Sherwin-Williams' gallery white: bright and slightly cool, with a faint blue-gray lean. 6 rooms by Darlene Molnar. The most consistent warning in every review is low light, where the blue-gray reads as dingy gray.
Farrow & Ball's coolest white, with a hint of gray from lamp black pigment, made for minimal and industrial schemes. 5 rooms by Morgan Harrison Home. If every other white on this list is too warm for you, start here.
How we chose these twelve
The usual best-white list is a row of chips and one designer's opinion. This one is built from photographs. Each color here has at least five published rooms on this site, every one credited to the studio that painted it, which means you can open the color's page and see it move between a kitchen and a bedroom, or between two designers' houses.
That rule produces a list that mostly agrees with the brands. Benjamin Moore says White Dove OC-17 is its most popular white and its most sampled paint color, with Chantilly Lace OC-65 and Swiss Coffee OC-45 'close behind.' Sherwin-Williams lists Pure White SW 7005 and Alabaster SW 7008 first among its top five whites. Alabaster is not on this page yet, because we have not published a credited room in it; its own page carries what the reviewers say.
Rooms, not sales, decide the order. White Dove leads with 39, then Pointing with 19, then Pure White and Swiss Coffee with 16 each.
Warm, cool or clean: the undertone question
White is never just white. Benjamin Moore explains that 'an undertone is created when there is a higher percentage of one color over the other,' and that 'warm white hues have undertones of red, orange, and yellow,' while cool whites carry green, blue or violet. Sherwin-Williams' Sue Wadden draws the same line: 'Warm whites are creamy with buttery or beige undertones,' while cool whites 'have blue or gray undertones and pair perfectly with colors like blue, gray, violet, and aqua.' The same Sherwin-Williams article adds that 'pure whites play well with all colors, since they have little-to-no undertones.'
On this list, the warm whites are White Dove, Pointing, Swiss Coffee, Simply White, School House White and Vanillin. The near-neutral ones are Pure White and Chantilly Lace. The cool ones are Tundra, China White, Extra White and Blackened.
Taste moves. Farrow & Ball's Joa Studholme: 'Our perception of neutral has changed; what we felt was white 15 years ago is now incredibly yellow to the modern eye.' That is why the warm whites that survive, White Dove above all, are the ones with a little gray holding the yellow back.
What the LRV tells you
Light reflectance value runs from 0 to 100, and Benjamin Moore's note on its whites is simply that 'a high LRV means they reflect a lot of light.' Neither brand publishes a cutoff between white and off-white. As a working rule, Lauren of Love Remodeled puts whites 'in the 80s and up range' and off-whites 'in the 70-80 range,' adding that 'these aren't hard and fast categories.'
On this list the brightest is Chantilly Lace at 90.04, then Simply White at 89.52, Extra White at 85.86, Pure White at 83.96, White Dove at 83.16 and Swiss Coffee at 81.91. Vanillin (77.86), Tundra (77.07) and China White (76.43) sit in off-white territory. Farrow & Ball does not list LRVs on its color pages, so Pointing, School House White and Blackened have none here.
LRV measures brightness only. Two whites with the same LRV can read completely differently next to the same trim, which is the undertone question above.
North-facing or south-facing
The brands agree on the direction. Benjamin Moore: 'Counterbalance the cast of cool northern exposure with a clean, fresh white paint that has a hint of yellow.' Farrow & Ball: 'Northern light tends to bring out the cooler tones within a colour.' Sherwin-Williams, on north-facing rooms: 'choose a warm neutral or a color with warm undertones,' and on south-facing ones, 'you'll need to avoid choosing a color that's too warm.'
Farrow & Ball's Patrick O'Donnell, quoted in Homes & Gardens, says that in north light 'you need to err on off-whites that contain some yellow or red pigment to inject some much-needed warmth,' while south-facing rooms 'can run the whole gamut from cooler, bluer-tinged whites which will feel fresh and clean.' Tash Bradley of Lick is more relaxed about the south: those rooms 'pretty much suit all whites.'
In practice: north-facing, look at White Dove, Pointing or Simply White. South-facing, Chantilly Lace, Pure White, Extra White and the cool off-whites come into their own.
Walls and trim
The simplest scheme is one white in two sheens. Benjamin Moore's sheen guidance is 'matte or eggshell for walls' and 'semi-gloss for trim and doors,' and it recommends that 'for ultimate continuity, paint all the trim in your home the same Benjamin Moore white paint color.' Its own example pairing uses two whites: 'White Dove OC-17 on trim, Ballet White OC-9 on walls.'
The common two-white scheme puts the cleaner white on trim. Pure White or Chantilly Lace on trim with a warmer white on the walls is the version we see most often in the rooms here. The pairing to avoid is two whites of similar depth and different undertone, which reads as a mistake rather than a contrast.
Test before you commit
Benjamin Moore: 'White paint colors are especially prone to taking on different tonalities from morning to evening,' so 'live with your options for a few days before you buy.' Farrow & Ball: 'the time of day, and even the time of year can change how we perceive colour.'
Paint two large boards, move them between the darkest and brightest walls of the room, and look at them beside the things you cannot change: the floor, the counter, the tile, the trim. Then look again at night under your own bulbs. Every white on this page has a sample link on its own page.
Questions
More guides
Room guides
- Bathroom paint colors, in real bathrooms
Bathroom and powder room paint colors photographed in real rooms, credited to the designers who used them, plus what the paint brands say about finish, moisture and mildew.
- Bedroom paint colors, in real bedrooms
Bedroom paint colors in 113 photographs of real bedrooms, credited to the designers who chose them, with what brands and sleep experts say about color.
- Living room paint colors, in real living rooms
Living room paint colors in 187 photographs of real living rooms, credited to the designers who chose them, with guidance on finish and flow.
- Kitchen paint colors, in real kitchens
Kitchen paint colors in 56 photographs of real kitchens, credited to the designers who chose them, with brand guidance on cabinet paint, finish and counters.
- Dining room paint colors, in real dining rooms
Dining room paint colors in 52 photographs of real dining rooms, credited to the designers who chose them, plus advice on dark walls and candlelight.
Color roundups
- The best green paint colors, in real rooms
The best green paint colors, from pale sage to deep olive, each photographed in a real credited room, with LRV, undertone and where each one works.
Comparisons
- White Dove vs Swiss Coffee
White Dove (LRV 83.16) vs Swiss Coffee (LRV 81.91): which is warmer, which is brighter, and which designers reach for, with both shown in real rooms.
- White Dove vs Chantilly Lace
White Dove (LRV 83.16) vs Chantilly Lace (LRV 90.04): Benjamin Moore's soft warm white against its cleanest white, compared by designers and shown in real rooms.
- Pure White vs Extra White
Sherwin-Williams Pure White (LRV 84) vs Extra White (LRV 86): which is warmer, which reads icy in north light, and which designers prefer for walls and trim.
- Chantilly Lace vs Pure White
Benjamin Moore Chantilly Lace (LRV 90.04) vs Sherwin-Williams Pure White (LRV 84): crisp vs softly warm, compared by designers and shown in real rooms.